Spirit of the Buffalo

﻿Buffalo have inhabited North America for 100,000 years or more.

Bison or Buffalo?

The bison's pre-historic ancestors were much larger than their present-day cousins. At the Hawkeye Buffalo Ranch store, we have on display a buffalo skull estimated to be over 25,000 years old. This skull is th﻿ree times the size of present day buffalo. Buffalo or Bison? Which is correct? Actually, they are the same. Bison is the scientific name and buffalo is the common name. Spanish explorers of the early

1500s were the first white persons to see these shaggy creatures, which they thought were wild cows. However, it was the early French that named them le boeuf, the French word for beef. English speaking frontiersmen twisted the name to buffalo.

Before colonization, buffalo roamed the entire United States. They were the staples for the Native American Indians who utilized every part of the hunted bison. Unfortunately, they were no competition for white settlers' advancing "civilization" and by the early 1800s, the last of the buffalo east of the Mississippi had been killed. Still, an estimated 16,000,000 covered the western plains from Texas to Canada.

At that time, migrating herds were wider then you could see and extended in length for 100 miles.Advancing frontiersmen lived off buffalo, but didn't even put a dent in their numbers, only a lack of transportation held off the inevitable slaughter. The American attitude of Manifest Destiny would prevail. If it is there, kill it, and plow the land and plant it. It mattered not that the Native Americans had been caretakers of the land and herds for generations.

The end of the Civil War and completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 would signal the beginning of the end of the great herds. Railroads brought settlers, and the transportation brought buffalo hunters. Now that there was a way to get the buffalo hides to market, every man on the east coast wanted a buffalo coat, and the thick leather hide, which wouldn't wear out as quickly as a cattle leather. A typical team of buffalo hunters of would consist of two hunters, four skinners, and three wagons with drivers to haul hides to the market. For protection against the Indian raids, the teams stayed fairly close together.

Buffalo skulls left behind

A good hunter would kill 75-100 buffalo a day. A good skinner would skin 60 animals per day. They skinned the animals where they fell and once skinned, the hide was stretched and staked to dry. If hides brought $2, the hunter was paid 20 cents and the skinner 15 cents. Once skinned, the hunters generally took only the tongue and hump meat, plus the tallow to lubricate their shells.

Most of the slaughter took place in 1870-1875. Some hunters took from 3,000-5,000 animals during a summer season. In a six-year period, one hunter killed 20,500 buffalo. By 1875, the herd had been reduced to a million head. The transcontinental railroad had split herd migration, and now two major herds existed. The south herd was the largest, but by 1880 it had been decimated. The hunters moved north, and for $56 they could purchase the newly invented Sharps breech-loading rifle. The killing would soon be over.

Today, buffalo herds are thriving across the U.S. and Canada

A survey party sent out in 1900 found less than 200 animals. A small herd remained in the Yellowstone area and a few more were preserved on ranches. Luckily, early environmentalists and dedicated ranchers would fight to save this American icon. Today the American buffalo is alive and well. With about 350,000 bison in North America, the threat of extinction is gone.

While the buffalo no longer roam freely, they thrive on ranches and in public space across the country, with herd numbers growing every day. We invite you to visit the Hawkeye Buffalo Ranch. Come and share the spirit that still lives on.